WWII in GR

[Doug Millison]

>At 9:25 PM +0000 8/6/00, Paul Mackin wrote:
>Everyone knows Jewish slave labor was used in the production of the
>rockets. But do you believe you've only wanted "reasonable emphasis" on
>the Holocaust? Seems like you've wanted preponderantly overwhelming
>emphasis.

Mackin can characterise what I say as he wishes, of course. And, if 
he wants to insist on a reading of GR that erases or minimizes the 
Holocaust and refuses to see the Dora slaves ("Where are the 
depictions of this slave labour in the text?" rj asked), I'd suggest 
that he's adding his own "preponderantly overwhelming emphasis", but 
of course he can go ahead and read it any way that he wants to read 
it.  If he wants to read GR with a primary emphasis on black/white 
U.S. race relations, right on! The novel certainly supports that sort 
of interpretation.  Just as it can support an interpretation that 
focuses on the Holocaust. Or an interpretation that focuses on 
technology and science. Or an interpretation that focuses on 
religion. Or an interpretation that focuses on any of the other, 
myriad aspects of what many have called Pynchon's encyclopedic novel. 
I would suggest that a reading of GR that precludes the 
interpretations that other readers bring to the novel might encounter 
resistance.

You might say that the Holocaust works in GR something like the way 
that slavery works in M&D.  In that novel, Pynchon makes only a few 
references to slavery in North America, but enough to show  the role 
the slaves played in the colonies'  economic good fortune, and enough 
to show their mistreatment and suffering; Dixon's confrontation with 
the slavemaster and his freeing of the slaves in Baltimore rises as a 
high point in the narrative, in much the same way that Pokler's 
realization of his complicity in the suffering and death of the Dora 
slaves rises as a high point in GR. Is slavery central or fundamental 
to M&D? I think such an argument could be supported. But you may 
disagree, and that's OK, too.
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